TREATMENT OF WORDS

Personally I should have preferred to retain all the words which Misyn employs, in the hope that some would find their way back into our too much latinized English; but I feared to outweary the patience of the reader. The following is a list of those which I have altered in the text, with their nearest modern equivalents.

I have kept words which are of common occurrence in the Bible and Prayer Book, and those still in use in Scotland. There are, however, some words which remain in modern English but which have altered or restricted their meaning. Such are very apt to mislead the modern reader. I have, therefore, treated them freely, retaining them when in a modern sense or when their meaning is quite apparent, but changing them if the meaning is at all ambiguous. I append here a full list of these, to avoid the multiplication of footnotes.

Misyn often uses “withouten” for “without,” for the sake of rhythm, and in this I have followed him; nor have I taken upon myself to suppress his constant repetition of “truly,” “forsooth,” “doubtless,” “certain,” “sickerly.” Sometimes these translate the Latin vero, valde, certe, etc., but more often than not stand for an ordinary conjunction, such as enim, namque, autem. O.E.D. against a word in the footnote signifies that the actual word or phrase found in Misyn is quoted in the Oxford English Dictionary.

Where the meaning is obscure I have altered: